Sportsdude360

Thanks for those cool pics, texcoaster! Yeah, right now's a good time to buy stock in chemical degreaser companies. Looking at those pics I have a feeling their sales are about to go through the roof. Here's a shot I took last week.

I'm sure they'll make an effort to clean it up. But they're going to need plenty of degreaser.

I don't suppose you asked him about the abandoned shopping area. I'm dying to know what they're planning.

I've seen this so many times over the years that I tend to think nothing of it. Sorry.

We'll all get our hopes up only to find out that they're going to use the area for a new parking lot or something.

Finished my day with 2 rides on the New Texas Giant at SFOT.

I'm at the park now and there's no sign of deconstruction on Flashback or Chute out . They're fenced off , but that's it. After speaking with several park security personel, I've learned some interesting things. First off, I'm convinced that Texas Skyscreamer will prove a failure to SFOT. Why do I think this? Simple, I went to the top of the oil derrick tower today, it was quite windy. I spoke to a security officer at the top and asked him how they (park management) intended to operate a 400 foot Skyscreamer with wind conditions so bad. He told me that it was his opinion that the Skyscreamer would be the most useless addition to the park in it's history because of wind conditions in the D/FW area. Considering the Chute Out didn't operate during windy conditions and neither did the oil derrick tower, and Skyscreamer being taller than both would definately not operate in winds of 20mph or more. He also said that park management had originally told them that the park would be getting X-Flight or something similar. But plans had changed and now they were getting Skyscreamer. I asked him about the abandoned shopping area, he confirmed that the park had plans to use the area for expansion. When I asked him if a new ride would be built in the area, he said that once Flashback and the old bumper car building were removed the park would then begin demolishing the shopping area and clearing all the land for expansion. I asked him if he had any idea what type of ride would be built in the area. He asked me if I'd heard of X2 at Magic Mountain, I said that I had ridden it. He told me the new coaster to be built in the area would be similar to that. I told him that Arrow, the company responsible for X-2 had gone out of buisness and that there was no way that they could be building a new coaster here. He said that the new coaster wouldn't be exactly the same but similar. I asked him if he meant a winged coaster, I then described what a winged coaster looked like. He said that sounded very much like what they were planning. He said that the new coaster would take a while to build and would be brand new as opposed to something sent from another park. He said it would open in either 2014 or 2015 and would be customed built to fit in the area being cleared. I realise that this is extremely unreliable info so I decided to speak to several other security pesonnel in the park. They all told me pretty much the same story about the abandoned shopping area. Everyone I spoked to said that park management had told them that a new coaster would be built in the years ahead and that it was supposedly based on X-2 at MM. I know full well that none of this is reliable in the slightest. But I have a gut feeling that a new coaster is comming. But when it will come and what type of coaster it will be, only time will tell.

Wildcatter had room to fall, Chuteout doesn't. Chuteout is also taller than Wildcatter and surrounded by other attractions. As I said earlier, the only possibility would be to have Chuteout fall in the direction of the abandoned shopping area. But they would have to remove both Flashback and the bumper car building first to keep them out of harm's way. To have Chuteout fall in any other direction would cause damage to surrounding shops, restaurants and rides.

There is no place for Texas Chuteout to fall without causing massive destruction. It can't fall towards the entry road, that would be disasterous. If it falls towards Freeze it would cause catastrophic damage to both coasters in the area. It can't fall towards Goodtime Theatre either. The only possibility would be to remove both Flashback and the bumper car building first and allow it to fall towards the abandoned shopping area. I'm thinking they'll probably just disassemble the tower piece by peice.

I'm heading out to SFOT this weekend. I'll let everyone know if it looks like they're doing any deconstruction on Flashback or not.

SFOT was running all three NTG trains on labor day. And doing so very efficiently I might add.

That looks awesome!

Well, I did ride Son of Beast at Kings Island right after it first opened. It was smooth then and still had the loop. I don't suppose that counts as rare. Anyway, those are the rarest I have in my collection.

My two rarest coaster credits would have to be Big Bend at SFOT and Big Dipper at Spring Lake OKC. The Big Bend coaster was scrapped after the 1978 season and Spring Lake amusement park closed for good in the early 80's.

I have to agree. I just rode Freeze backwards for the first time this past weekend- LOVED IT!!! It felt like a different ride entirely. Going up the spike backwards and looking down is one of the most frightening sensations I've had on a coaster.

I'll keep you updated.

Like I said, I haven't done anything like that in years. It was about 15 years ago when I carved my initials. These days I'm pretty tame, nowhere near as wild as my younger days. The most vandalism I've ever done were those initials and one or two scratches here and there in the park. In fact, other visitors to the park over the years have done much worse things than I ever did. For what it's worth, I hope they completely refurbish the ride with new trains. Just rode it today and it would be quite a bit of fun it it weren't so rough. Today was Flashback's final day of operation here at SFOT.

I will be there today to take my final rides on Flashback and Texas Chuteout. I will bid farewell for you.

My bad.

OK, here's a hypothetical situation . SF hears that your upset about Flashback coming to SFStL. They have a change of heart and tell you " well, ok then. If you don't want Flashback then pick another coaster, but it has to be from SFOT." So, with that in mind, which SFOT coaster do you pick?

I wouldn't recommend riding Flashback - unless you enjoy a good headache.

I haven't done anything like that in years, neither has my gf. Admittedly, we were a bit wild back then. Actually, I haven't ridden Flashback in some time. It's possible that they've cleaned the gum out since then, although my initials are probably still there but covered over with paint.

When I went there was no line...The ride gives little airtime, even in the back. Yet I'm almost greatful for that, because I went about two weeks ago and the little airtime I got was rough, so rough that I felt the need to staple myself to avoid getting air. I didn't remember it being rough on my previous visits, but I was unpleasantly surprised. However, some guy was re-riding at least 3 times while I was over there and I'd assume he got 20 in the whole day judging (no pun intended) on his attitude...Maybe it's just not for me...it mostly seems boring for a coaster. Due to the short line, I'd probably ride JRS the next time I go, but I would only rank it slightly above Flashback. At the same time for SFoT it is well worth keeping - definitely worth refurbishment, but not worthy of New Texas Giant style refurb - plus, as the park's only woodie, who wants that? I'm not so excited for the Sky Screamer. I haven't ridden one, but they definitely intimidate me to a higher degree than a 400 ft tall coaster. If the wait was longer than 20 minutes, I'd probably skip it, otherwise it could be fun. I'm looking forward to the next year or two...maybe that Dive Machine rumor will come to fruition! I agree completely with everything in this post.

Ok, so they're "figuratively" slapping their guests in the face.

I don't hate the Judge, I've been riding it since it first opened in 1981. It was a great ride back then. But like all wooden coasters age has taken it's toll. And since space is at a premium at SFOT, well, I just feel that something much better could be built in that space. I never carved my initials in the Judge, but I did leave a couple of scratches on one of the wooden rails in the queue line.